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Judge questions truck thief's maturity

KINGSTON - A South Frontenac Township man, who sneaked into a Princess Street automotive lot with a buddy in late April and stole the Kingston Rowing Club's truck, made a poor impression on his sentencing judge.

But he declined to sentence. the 37-year-old to a further five months in jail urged on him by assistant Crown attorney Natalie Thompson and also rejected defence lawyer Kevin Dunbar's pitch for time served.

Instead, he gave Foster enhanced credit on 120 days already spent in pretrial custody, counting the time as equivalent to seven months of jail, and sentenced him to a further 60 days and probation for two years.

Foster actually pleaded guilty in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice to the thefts of two trucks -- the rowing club's Ford F-150 in April and a 2004 F-150 belonging to an acquaintance -- plus two related violations of probation he'd received in July 2015, which required him to keep the peace and a third breach of the same probation committed when he stopped reporting in mid-March this year.

The two-year probation order was imposed on Foster after he pleaded guilty at the end of a federal sentence to a fraud he'd committed in Toronto a year earlier in April 2014. In that instance he'd misappropriated the bank card of an ex-girlfriend's adult daughter, made a series of empty envelope deposits into her account and over time withdrew $2,696.47, leaving her on the hook for the loss. He was ordered to make restitution, by Justice Allan Letourneau, but Thompson told Justice O'Brien he made no payments whatsoever while that order was in force.

Justice O'Brien attached the previous $2,696.47 restitution to Foster's new probation and ordered him to pay an additional $500 restitution to the Kingston Rowing Club.

Both trucks he stole were recovered damaged and as late as July a spokesperson for the rowing club reported they still hadn't been able to get theirs running properly. The club was consequently forced to rent a vehicle to attend an out-of-town regatta.

Thompson told Justice O'Brien that Foster and his alleged partner in crime, a 26-year-old man still before the courts, were caught on video surveillance April 23, slipping onto the Princess Street automotive lot where the rowing club stores its truck for the winter.

Surveillance footage also caught Foster driving the truck north off the lot onto Princess Street, followed by his companion on a bicycle.

Four days later, Thompson told the judge, a man doing some work for a Sharbot Lake area cottage owner was surprised to find a strange truck on site when he arrived at the property shortly before 9 a.m.

Justice O'Brien was told Foster and his companion claimed to the workman they'd run out of gas and asked if he could loan them a gas can.

Thompson told the judge the man ended up driving Foster's companion to the OPP detachment in Sharbot Lake where the request for a spare gas can was repeated and an OPP officer followed them back to the cottage.

Initially, she said, Foster's companion told the officer that he and Foster didn't know each other and claimed he'd been hitch-hiking when the older man picked him up.

Foster, meanwhile, denied ever telling the workman that he'd run out of fuel, told the officer the truck belonged to a friend and claimed to know the cottage owner. He told the OPP officer he'd driven there because he too was doing some work for the owner.

Thompson said Foster then simply drove off while the OPP officer was talking to his 26-year-old companion trying to sort out what was going on and before it was realized the truck was stolen.

The rowing club's truck was eventually found some time later, abandoned in a driveway near Smith Falls.

Foster had given police his real name and date of birth, however, and told them he was living in Verona. Consequently, he was interviewed about the truck's theft and admitted being in on it, but only as a lookout, and was able to remain at large.

The following month, on May 16, Thompson said Foster prevailed on an acquaintance to borrow his grey pickup for four hours.

He didn't return the truck in four hours, however, and Thompson said the truck's owner, who needed it for work, repeatedly called Foster trying to ask him to bring it back.

Foster, she told the judge, simply blocked his calls and kept driving his truck for a week. He was behind the wheel on May 23 when OPP arrested him in Kaladar. And when the truck's owner finally got it back, Thompson said it was heavily damaged, its rims were missing and so were all of the owner's tools.

Foster's lawyer, Dunbar, told the judge his client broke up with his wife just prior to the first of the truck thefts "and his life unravelled and he resorted to thefts."

Foster added that he now has has a plan and told Justice O'Brien his family will give him work in Trenton and he'll live there with his sister and two daughters. He also promised to pay off his restitution this time.

"For somebody who's got two daughters you're not setting a good example," the judge observed and when Foster apologized "for any inconvenience I caused," and for wasting the judge's time, Justice O'Brien snapped back "you're not wasting my time, you're wasting [the second truck owner's] time and you're wasting the rowing club's time."

He characterized Foster in sentencing him, as "a man who is 37 years of age, who is failing to grow up," and told him "you're a thief."

Commenting on his failure to pay "a dime" of the initial restitution, Justice O'Brien said "it's a reflection, Mr. Foster, of your indifference to anyone but yourself."

And he warned him, "whether you smarten up or burn out, Mr. Foster, I don't care which, you've got to make a change."